Breathwork can be a deep, profound and intense experience. It can open up unfamiliar states of consciousness; which can be filled with insights, yet can also uncover unhealed spaces within us. To integrate it, means to process it. It's not about “getting over it,” “transcending” it, “outgrowing” it. In our experience there are some things that happen to us that we will never “get over”. Instead, the integration process learns us how we can accept those parts to become part of us in a healthy and responsible way. The goal is to find a larger home for it. This will never unwind in an environment of abandonment and aggression. Therefore "Integration" is a process that requires compassion to discover a place inside us where we can hold and contain our experience. By doing so we can start to make sense of what happened in new ways that can illuminate the tendency to dissociate.
Open Up offers the following guidelines in hope of supporting a positive experience and help guide you how to integrate what you may have uncovered and opened. To greet your familiar surroundings in new ways.
GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO PROCESS
First and foremost, allow yourself the time and space for integration. During a session you may have gone through some physical and emotional experiences which can leave you a little delicate and more receptive to the environment around you. After a session the energies you have worked with might not be completed. A new perspective, new information, or new visions might come to the surface with you, which is not always a comfortable process. It is quite normal to feel more emotional than usual. Intense feelings can well up. This is a natural part of the process. Try to hold them generatively and experience them as potential places of growth. Creating a healthy relationship with these feelings, observations and experiences is a process of trust and willingness to be with what is, knowing it will change. Try to be patient with yourself and set time aside daily if you can to allow these experiences to come through and to be with them. Great wisdom might be hidden in sometimes difficult feelings.
The integration time depends on several things. Ask yourself the following questions.
How deep and/or powerful was my session?
How much did I release emotionally and/or physically?
Did I feel overwhelmed by the experience?
How did I end my session, how did I feel?
Generally speaking, the more your answers are of a heightened state for these questions, the more you should plan to give yourself some integration time. When we integrate we re-organise ourselves and learn to train ourselves to re-inhabit our bodies – even in the face of something profoundly disturbing. The process is of meeting the uniqueness of our lived, direct experience, and replace them with new words – re-authoring the story of who we are, where we can begin to weave a more "integrated" narrative of our lives. There are many ways to help you to begin to trust in the validity of your experience.
KEEP LISTENING TO YOUR BODY
Your body may react to the session for a couple of days. Symptoms may include: irregular sleeping (either you need more or less sleep), shifts in digestion (nausea, diarrhea, constipation), strange sensory experiences (metallic taste, peculiar smells, tingling sensation in fingers and toes) and muscular pain. Your body may feel lighter or heavier. Your body might break out in a rash, or you might become more sensitive to certain foods or products. Be gentle with yourself through the integration process. Support your body well by eating lightly and moving your body with light exercise or stretches.
Get adequate rest and sleep
Stay hydrated. Drink plenty of water
Eat nourishing foods
Spend time in nature
Move your body with gently exercises or stretches (i.e. walking, stretching, yoga)
Nurture your body (i.e. massage, bath)
GROUND YOURSELF
You may feel a bit “spaced out” after a session which is quite normal. Take extra care when driving, cycling or operating any sort of machinery. If possible, try not to go straight into your normal daily routine for at least 2 hours after your session. Help to ground and resource yourself.
Drink sufficient water: Breathwork detoxifies the body and through the expelling of air, and moist it is important to keep your body hydrated. Rehydrate your body with fresh coconut water, low sugar electrolyte- enhanced beverages and water.
Grounding foods: Eating comfort foods can be helpful in grounding such as warm soup and stews, root vegetables, beets.
Helpful practices for grounding: Breathwork experience tend to be expansive. Grounding is the way to re-connect with your body and somatic rhythms and instill insights from your experience. Physical activity and activities that make you feel your body are especially helpful. This might be a forest walk, or yoga, or dance. Also warm baths are helpful to nourish your body and rest. For more rapid grounding, sauna use and cold showers are very helpful although they are more demanding, and not for everyone. Use your judgement and research any health contra-indications before attempting these practices.
Establish a certain ritual, or connect a sense of purpose with a significant object or place which can help anchor you and deepen your understanding of your inner world. Staying consciously connected to you breathing can become part of your integration, if it feels comfortable. A 5-10 minute daily practice could be a start. Other practices we like to suggest are:
Meditation, paying attention to any “material” surfacing from your psyche.
Attend to and work with your dreams. You are closest to your unconscious in your dreams and more important material might surface in the days following the breathwork. If you remember your dreams, write them down.
Writing/journaling. We suggest Julia Cameron's Morning Pages
And others such as: making art, drawing, working in garden, moving your body to music, or find your preferred way to have an outlet for the energies that are coming to the surface. Try to have time daily to one or more of these activities, and use that time to reflect, express and honor your ongoing process
THE POWER OF TOUCH
Physical touch is a vitally important perquisite in human development and extremely nurturing and grounding after your experience. A hug from your partner & cuddling a pet can help release Oxytocin. If you do not have a partner to cuddle with, consider booking a massage or a healing session that incorporates touch.
STAY WITH THE TROUBLE
It is helpful to view breathwork as an ongoing process that doesn’t have a specific set ending. Each session will be held and bring about a sense of completion, however, in the larger picture we prefer to look at this work as an ongoing exploration into yourself.
Sit with the possibility that you don’t know what’s needed and you don’t have the answers. Can you soften the urge to fix, solve, or transform your reality? Try to observe, listen and honor what is opening up without trying to explain it. There can be a strong urge to analyse and immediately understand your experiences. It is helpful to view breathwork as an ongoing process that doesn’t have a specific set ending. Give it time to feel and let the mental process of understanding unfold naturally. Be aware that we all have our ways of communicating and engaging in conflict. Some may be more passive, quiet, or avoidant while others may be more direct, expressive, or assertive. Be curious about yours.
SHARE GENEROUSLY BUT MINDFUL
This experience might call for you to share your stories. Take time for yourself about when and how to do that, as you may be more open and vulnerable than usual. Do not force yourself to socialise with people if it does not feel right, or to feel obliged to share your experience, breakthrough(s) or insight(s). If you feel you would like to share your experiences with family and/or friends, be mindful. Choose your moment with care so they can really hear and listen to you. Please share openly and honestly while trying to stay connected with heart, mind, body, and spirit. Also, sometimes it is better to digest an experience until you have come to deeper terms with it before talking about it with someone else.
If you are currently working with a therapist, you can make an appointment to share your breathwork experience if that feels right.
Use discretion regarding whom you discuss your experience; avoid sharing with those whom would attempt to discount or invalidate your experience.
HONOR THE STORIES AND THE LEARNINGS
If you have attended a group, keep confidentiality about the experiences of other participants. As we hope for our community to collectively generate new learnings and questions, please honor the relational aspect of learning. Do not take ownership of other people's ideas; acknowledge them as best you can. If someone's contribution has sparked a learning or insight in you, consider reaching out to them to thank them. dreams, questions, failures, ideas, and challenges.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF, YOUR WELL-BEING & YOUR BOUNDARIES.
Always apply the breathing techniques in a safe environment and unforced. As with all physical activities, application breathwork and any related practices entails some degree of physical and mental risk. Be cognizant of your own capabilities and limits, both physical and mental, and act accordingly. If you have any concerns or questions regarding particular exercises, always feel free to reach out to us.
Never conduct deep breathing activities in places where loosing consciousness is extremely dangerous (e.g. in water, whilst driving, etc.). If you observe any unusual significant stress during your own practice, presence or participation, remove yourself from participation. We ask each participant to decide what levels of personal sharing and risk feels comfortable for them.